Cupid, She's My Girl
by FieryArcher
Summary: Joe makes plans for Valentines'. (A previously written Valentines Day story for HDAgency. Lots of OC.)
1. Chapter 1

"Cupid, She's _My_ Girl!"

Chapter One

The sharp snap of the cassette player's door shutting bounced off the heart shaped pillows that sat snuggly in the corners of the living room couch. Vanessa Bender pressed the dusty, square of a play button and listened to the reluctant clicking as the player lazily began to set the wheels of the tape into motion. She turned away as the sharp whistling and thunderous applause of a concert audience burst into the living room.

"_The Bells of Saint Mary's—The Drifters ladies and gentlemen! Let's hear it for them, come on you got to go again, more, more…"_

Vanessa smiled as she mouthed with the announcer, "_Come on Charlie! We __**got**__ to have ya back!"_ She leapt up from her knees and began to clap her hands, along with the rest of the radio audience, to the twanging beat as the lead singer sang, _"You know the landlord rang my front doorbell. I let it ring for a long, long spell. I went to the window, I peeked through the blinds. I asked him to tell me what was on his mind. He said, 'Money honey.' Yes. 'Money honey.' Yes! 'Money honey, if you wanna get along with me!'"_

Wriggling her toes, she started a bouncing dance that led around the room and off towards the kitchen, singing with the song that followed after her. "I finally got my baby about half past three, she asked me to tell her what I want with her. She said, 'Money honey!'" Vanessa continued singing as she searched the kitchen cabinets until she unearthed a cookbook that was falling apart at the binding and yellowing from both age and usage. She hoisted herself onto the counter, pink-socked feet nodding to the still thrumming beat from the other room as she leafed through the recipes.

She passed three songs this way, until she found it—the perfect recipe for a bored Saturday. "Chart House Mud Pie," Vanessa swallowed the saliva that sprang up underneath her tongue as she read the list of ingredients, "1/2 package of chocolate wafers, ½ cube (melted) butter, gallon of coffee ice cream, 1 1/2 cups of fudge sauce, whipped cream, and slivered almonds." She slid off the counter and went to the stoic soldier of a refrigerator that stood guard in the corner next to the back door.

"Probably none left." The can of "Real" whipped cream was lying on its side in the rack of the fridge door. She picked it up and shook it hopefully. It seemed to be half-full. "Yes! She hasn't got to it!" Vanessa glared balefully back towards the kitchen counter at a lipstick-stained coffee mug that sat next to the sink. She set the can far back into the refrigerator and turned to the walk-in cupboard for another raid, letting the refrigerator door close with a thump.

"No cookies, no almonds, oh!" She picked up a pack of crackers that was trying to hide behind a slim box of KRAFT Mac&Cheese, "Cream cheese and chives!" Ripping into the package, she shoved one whole cracker into her mouth before continuing her search for ingredients. It only took one glance into the freezer to confirm her no-ice-cream-status. "Looks like I'll be going to the store today after all."

Wiggling into her ballet flats she did one last jig to _"The Twist"_, punched the cassette player to a stop, and hurried out the front door with her key ring dancing at the ends of her fingers. Her car's interior was that still, mid-day cold of inactivity, complete with the remains of a hamburger from the night before. "Ick," Vanessa balled up the fast-food trash and tossed it behind her onto the floor of the backseat, "I've _got_ to clean this place out sometime."

It took twenty minutes to dodge the weekend movie traffic and pull into the parking lot of Wal-Mart. It took another three minutes finding a parking space. "And this is why I don't shop on the weekends." She grumbled aloud as she barely managed a collision with an unaware driver. Her car coughed in agreement with her confession as it shuttered to a stop when the ignition was disengaged.

"Ugh, all these people," Vanessa ran a finger under her right eye, a sure sign that she was about to have an attack of serious sneezes. She had just stepped inside of the "Exit" automatic sliding doors when the sneezes seized her nasal passages. "Thank you," was her response to a passing stranger's blessing. A small bottle of sanitizer from her jean's pocket washed away any sneeze germs from her hands as she all but ran to the grocery section of the supermarket.

She hurried past tall aisle shelves that held everything from confetti to orange juice before she reached the cookie and chip aisle and snatched up several different kinds of chocolate cookies. She mentally ran over the quickest route to get the supplies she needed.

She smiled to herself at the irony of her thoughts. _'I think Joe is rubbing off on me.'_ That simple thought, of how her boyfriend and his brother would lay-out a game plan for everything, slowed her down long enough to notice the red, pink, gold, and light fuchsia symbols of love that dripped off the edges of shelves to splash down the front of bookending holiday displays.

A light brown teddy bear, clutching a drab colored rose caught her eye. Shifting the cookies onto one arm Vanessa reached out and stroked the bear's soft, tufty fur. "You know what I would call you if you were my own?" her grin widened as she softly tugged a forelock of hair that was supremely lighter than the rest, "I'd call you, Joey." So busy was she in thinking thoughts of ingredients, bears, and boys that she didn't notice a figure, half-hidden by the Valentine flower stand, watching her every move.


	2. Chapter 2

"Cupid, She's _My_ Girl!"

Chapter Two

"Yeah, uh huh," the cell phone was beginning to slip from between shoulder and ear when Frank shrugged it back into position, "Actually, for some reason, I don't think that is going to be a good way to ask her, Phil." He dodged around the sofa and caught a pile of shirts that were headed for the floor. Settling them in the crook of his arm, he headed for the second floor staircase. "You probably should take her to that one restaurant she said she liked." He winced at the response, "Phil, if you are serious about this than you need to be willing to go out on a limb, both figuratively and _financially_."

Frank reached his room and deposited his laundry hastily on his bed. "Statistics have nothing to do with it. You know what, why don't you go ask your mother? She would probably do better at helping you than I am. After all, she is a…woman." Some semblance of a whimper escaped from the other end of the line. "Look, Phil," Frank sighed as he started back downstairs, "I'm excited for you, really, but, you need advice from someone who has more, um, experience with this sort of thing. Your Mom would be a great person to discuss this with after all she does this sort of thing every day."

Phil Cohen, Frank Hardy's best friend since they had been six, coughed several times before admitting, with a groan, that _logically_ talking to his mother would be a good idea. Frank ended the conversation with a fond wishing and slowing made his way back to the living room and waiting laundry basket. He had just finished the last of his load when he heard a key in the front door then the squeak of it opening.

"Hey, Joe is that you?" Frank grabbed at a pair of socks that tried to roll away from him. "Mom's washed everybody's laundry this morning. The washer is in its final death throws, so she wanted to have everything washed before getting it replaced Tuesday. So you have a whole basket full of clean clothes that you need to do something about." The only answer to this information was the sound of soft shuffling transitioning from the carpeted hallway to kitchen linoleum. A fleeting suspicion caused Frank to toss the socks back onto the couch and follow the loud thumps.

"Joe?" The rail thin figure that was bent over the sink only twitched at the sound of the name. "Joe, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Joe Hardy, his unruly, spiked hair standing nearly on end from his recent exposure to the crisp winter air, moved towards the refrigerator with a glass clutched tight in his hand, "I'm just getting some water." Frank barely caught a glimpse of his brother's face as Joe pushed past him, but what he saw caused his brow to crease.

"No," he moved to block Joe as he turned with a full glass, "Everything is not okay. Did something happen at the shop while you were down there?" Joe avoided his eyes. "Was the bill bad?" Still no answer. Fear highlighted Frank's next question. "Was it Cadlon?" Joe's eyes flicked up and away as he huffed and brushed past his brother.

Frank's stomach fell as his mind jumped to the worst conclusions. "Joe, did he—"

"It wasn't Cadlon, okay. He left," Joe waved his hand, "ages ago." He set his glass down and touched his forehead with his cool hand. "I just…" he swallowed, "This whole 'love day' thing…I'm not sure how I'm going to go about doing it."

Relief never felt so good, Frank fell against the doorframe with its weakness. "There must be something in the water. First Phil, and now, you."

There was a half-snort. "And you're not?"

"Not really. I'm taking Callie to that new restaurant downtown and afterwards we are going to a jazz concert down by the docks."

"Jazz?" Joe left his glass, moved away from the counter and walked out of the kitchen, Frank following. "Seriously? You can't even take her somewhere fun?"

"For some of us listening to jazz _is_ fun."

"For _you_," Joe pointed for emphasize, "jazz is fun. For the rest of the _normal_ world going to a game, or movie, or even a club is fun."

Frank watched as his brother plopped himself on the sofa, upsetting the pile of folded laundry at the other end. "God, Joe, I just folded those, geez!" He gathered them up, "I don't suppose you have plans for taking Vanessa anywhere, do you?"

"It's just," Joe drummed his fingers on the coffee table that almost seemed to prop up his arm of the couch, "She's not an easy person to make plans for, especially for Valentine's Day."

"Have you talked to Tony?" Frank steadied the pile as it swayed in his arms, "He might have some tips."

"Yeah right Frank. That'll sound real great, 'Here, I bought these flowers for you, your ex said they were your favorite.'"

"I'm not saying that you have to ask what her favorite flower is, you should know what they are by now, but it wouldn't hurt to ask him if there was something in particular you might want to do, or _not_ do seeing as they might have done it before."

"Great advice," Joe rolled his eyes, "I just won't take her near anyplace at all, they've been practically everywhere together."

"We could double date."

"So not happening, Callie would hate me for life and she'd probably murder _you_."

Frank shrugged, "Just a thought. Better think of something fast, only four days until 'V' day." He turned at the living room entrance, "Oh, and, don't forget about the laundry."

Joe forced air from between his clenched teeth. "Hate laundry." He rubbed his hands over the knees of his jeans and watched as what was left of moisture and his natural oils soak into the fabric. What was he going to do? How could he make his and Vanessa's first Valentine's Day special? It had always been so easy with Iola. He winced, his emotions caught on the jagged edge of the memory of his first love. Those last few weeks had been a blur of activity, the campaigning, supply runs, and the recruiting of volunteers.

Flashes of bright light and smoke flared up before his face and he jerked sharply backwards. The heat was suffocating, he couldn't breathe! "No!" Joe fell against the back cushion of the couch, rubbing his face with both hands and mentally shoved the sound of jangling keys back into his subconscious. He couldn't let this relationship take the same route as the last one.

Joe got up and walked once more to the kitchen, the sea of his memories still surging against his mental breakwater, and tried to think of anything else to occupy his mind. He picked up a frame picture of him, his brother, and three of their best friends that his mother kept propped up on a little shelf above the sink. He ran his fingers over the top edge of the frame, collecting dust. He stared at the particles before flicking them to the floor and replacing the photo. "Maybe I should go talk to Tony."


	3. Chapter 3

"Cupid, She's _My_ Girl!"

Chapter Three

"Jimee cra' cern, an' I don' cer," Vanessa was holding one purse handle with her mouth as she felt around the bottom of the bag with her free hand, "My masser's go' a'ay." A few moments more she was triumphantly pulling out her car keys by the woven tail of a keychain decoration. Hurriedly, a cold breeze beginning to trace its icy fingers along the back of her neck, she unlocked the door and swung all of her burdens into the passenger seat.

"Ouch!" Her fingers were stripped red and white from where the plastic bags had bit into her flesh. Tossing her purse on top of the cookies, ice cream, and other ingredients with a crinkling crunch, she lowered herself into the driver's seat. "I need some water," she glanced at her reddening fingers, "Too dehydrated." She pulled out of parking lot before she remembered the rest of her crackers. "Yum!"

She hummed "Blue-Tail Fly" all the way home. Once there she pulled alongside of a teal, nineteen ninety-nine Oldsmobile. It was washed and polished to perfection, not a dent or a scratch in sight. Vanessa's smiled widened. She spoke to the grocery bags, "I hope you haven't melted." The sky had clouded on her trip back from the store and now that she was home, it started to rain. Vanessa grabbed all her bags and made a dash for the front door. "You home, Mom?"

"Just in the kitchen, dear." Vanessa's mother, Andrea Bender, came out of the kitchen holding the recipe book. Her well-kept nails, cut short yet stylishly painted in a peachy champagne, shimmered as she turned the pages of the book carefully. "Were you planning on doing something today Vanessa, darling?"

Vanessa moved past her mother and headed straight for the freezer. "Yes, I was going to try my hand at a dessert. It looked interesting."

Mrs. Bender turned absently in the doorway, "I thought you said you had to work today."

"Only from eight to one, remember Mother?" Tucking the ice cream behind a bright yellow box of frozen toaster waffles, Vanessa caught a whiff of coffee perking as she shut the freezer door with a snap. Her mother gestured to the rest of the bags hanging off her arm.

"Anything we can eat now?"

"I guess we could," Vanessa dug out a pack of cookies, mentally thanking whatever instinct had made her buy more than one package, "Got Oreos, want some milk?"

"Please." Mrs. Bender removed a two small bowls from the cabinet and also two spoons from the silverware drawer. By the time she had finished doing this Vanessa had pulled out the gallon jug of milk and had ripped into the Oreos. "Here you go." The Oreos were a rich black against the stark white of the crème filling. Mrs. Bender, smiling at her daughter, came away with a good handful of the cookies.

As far as outward appearance went mother and daughter had little in common. While her mother had bobbed reddish brown hair, green eyes and a nearly Roman nose, Vanessa's eyes were grey-blue, hair long and ash blonde, and she thought her nose was a little too wide at the nostrils. One thing they did share, and that was the fondness for a cereal bowl filled with crushed Oreos that were swimming in milk.

"Not exactly the healthy snack we should be eating." Mrs. Bender licked crumbs from her lips. Vanessa laughed and spooned a mound of black and milking mush to her mouth. "You won't need to make a dessert after this!"

"Mmmm, I still want to make it, just to see how it goes."

The two women ate leisurely, Vanessa answering questions about her day at work and her upcoming schedule, and Andrea, eyes bright, told her daughter about a new product concept for one of her clients. By the time they had finished their "snack" it was nearly time to start making dinner. "Why don't we order a pizza," Mrs. Bender removed her suit jacket and shoes, "And we can make that dessert together while we wait."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Vanessa cleared the kitchen table and crossed to the sink to wash the dish as her mother went to change into more comfortable clothing. It only took a few minutes for her to finish drying and putting away the dishes before her mother called out to ask what toppings they should request for on the pizza.

After answering in favor of meat lovers, she retrieved the recipe book and the non-melting ingredients and assembled them in a line on the counter. "Well," Mrs. Bender re-entered now dressed in jeans, a draped shirt, and casual flats, "This looks like it's going to be messy." She smiled as she handed Vanessa an apron and tied another one around her own waist.

They had just finished putting the finishing touches on the crushed cookie crust when the doorbell rang. "Pizza!" Vanessa squealed, bounding for the front door. Wiping the cookie crumbs from her hands onto the apron she opened the door and eagerly accepted the proffered aromatic box. Mrs. Bender came up behind her daughter, wallet in hand, paid and tipped the delivery boy, and after the door was closed teased her daughter about the cuteness of the young man.

"Give it up, Mom." Vanessa pried a generous slice of pizza from the box, "I already have a boyfriend, and he is plenty cute."

"That doesn't mean you can't appreciate the looks of another fellow." Mrs. Bender barely managed to catch a piece of sausage before it hit the front of her shirt. "A good-looking man is nothing to turn up your nose at, even if they are not your boyfriend." The scream of a violin interrupted Vanessa's un-ladylike snort. Frantically she dug into her pocket for her cell phone.

"Hello? Oh, hi Mrs. Allen," Vanessa waved a hand at her mother who was mouthing her curiosity, "Tomorrow? No, I'm not going to be doing anything that early. Sure, no problem. Alright, see you then."

"Work?"

Vanessa slid her phone back into her jeans, "Yeah, they needed me to come in early tomorrow. The Valentine's traffic has begun to pick up."

"All those people," Mrs. Bender shook her head, "You know that the closer the fourteenth is the more people will be coming for last minutes orders, right?"

Vanessa groaned as she dunked the crust of her pizza into the small container of garlic butter. "Don't remind me. Last year was a nightmare. I couldn't go to sleep without dreaming I was making arrangements. And they've changed the selection of what people can buy for the holiday."

"Whose 'they'?"

"Corporate." Vanessa licked her fingers, "They've decided to really cut into what can be ordered. Mostly simply stuff. It's supposed to help in that we will be able to make more arrangements in less time. You know all that efficiency muck they're trying to do."

"It's not a bad idea," her mother reached for another slice, "I'm sure they are trying to make sure that all their customers are satisfied, there _is_ less complaints if the packages get there on time, right?"

"Sometimes, but a lot of the time the customers complain about other things, not the time it gets there." They went on talking, about fulfilling customer needs, co-workers, and the different kinds of complaints that Vanessa's workplace occasionally have to appease, until the construction of the mud pie was finished and they both went to bed.


	4. Chapter 4

"Cupid, She's _My_ Girl!"

Chapter Four

"Omigod, omigod, OMIGOD!"

Vanessa rubbed her forehead with the back of her wrist. The polyester hair net always itched where it dug into her skin. "What is it this time, Bree?"

Bree Stolberg, her neon green streaked hair sticking up in rigid grooves beneath her own hair net, flung a tattered piece of green foliage to the floor. "The temps! They can't kale worth crap!" A rasping chuckle came from the far end of the fruit and ceramic cluttered metal table. Adam Hartness, a well-built twenty-one-year-old, who had no family in Bayport, choked as his laugh turned to coughing which he hurriedly smothered in the crook of his arm. When he could breathe easy again, he grinned.

"Just think Bree," he half whispered so that the small knot of workers at the other end of the room wouldn't hear, "Three more days and they'll all be gone."

Bree rolled her eyes and stabbed viciously at a heart shaped piece of pineapple with a plastic skewer. "Yeah right, you know that Ms. Banks will be keeping some of them on permanently." She cut off one last piece of green that clung miserably to the pineapple before placing it in the arrangement in front of her. "I just hope that it's not that weirdo of a wrapper."

"Come on, Bree," Vanessa winced at the squeal of a skewer digging into a foam base, "You know Grace does a good job. And you might not share shifts with her if she's kept on for good."

"FYI, I was here for three days last week and Grace was here each and every time." Bree stretched across Adam's space to hoist a plastic tub of pineapple shapes for her to use for the quickly growing line of containers that held foam bases and large pieces of kale. "She just acts so…" she plucked at the fingertips of her latex gloves, "Getto."

Adam laughed again, and passed a red vase to Vanessa, "Here, it's a Sweetheart."

Vanessa added the vase to her own line up. "Size?" Adam glanced over his shoulder at a rack holding a multitude of white ticket papers, "Large."

"Crud." Vanessa tore her gloves off and snatched another pair from out of the slim box she kept in her apron pocket. "Nina, I need three trays of dark strawberries do we have any in the fridge?"

A petite Asian woman, black braid wrapped around her head like a crown, turned from a tilted barrel of liquid chocolate with a skewered strawberry in hand. "Almost done with a tray now, there are four in the freezer and there should be at least another two trays in the walk-in."

"Great, can somebody get me the dipped strawberries from in the walk-in?"

Almost immediately a tray filled with standing strawberries was in front of her. "Thanks, Ash!"

"Welcome sweetness!"

For the next several hours the workplace was a flurry of activity. There were only two mishaps with the arrangements, one due to melted chocolate and the other due to someone's elbow. Vanessa was so drained from filling orders that by the time the temps left that she was hobbling as she entered into the manager's office.

"Ugh," Vanessa sank slowly into the only empty chair in the small, cramped, room, "I haven't hurt this bad since last Valentine's Day."

Mrs. Allen, a large African American woman with prescription glasses pinching her sizable nose, looked up from where she was going over the next day's orders. "Well, get ready to hurt some more cause the holiday ain't over yet. Some of those idiots are going to wait until the last damn second to get their order in."

Vanessa moaned and covered her eyes with both hands. "Why can't they order two weeks early like any sensible people would? Will there still be a night shift tomorrow?"

"Corporate is closing down our orders once we reach a certain point, but you already know we need to have over a hundred orders to have a night shift."

"Do we?"

Mrs. Allen gave Vanessa the "look", "What do you think?"

"That we do?" Vanessa was half hopeful, half wary, afraid that there would be a night shift.

"Mmhmm. And there might be two nights. Are you good for two nights?"

Lowering her head again, Vanessa inhaled the scent of chocolate, citrus, and sanitizer that was trapped in the fibers of her uniform's shirt sleeves. "Yes."

"That's fine." The phone rang and Mrs. Allen answered it. "Thank you for callin' Tasty Arrangements of Bayport this is Rebecca speaking, how may I help you?" Her smile faltered, then broadened, and she shooed Vanessa out of the room.

"Night shift?" Ashleigh "Ash" Holt, as well dressed as anyone could be in jeans and a uniform shirt, was just shutting one of the two doors that made up the front of the small "freezer" belonging to the chocolate dipping station. "April was going to do it, but she has a big test the next morning and she doesn't want to be falling asleep right in the middle of it."

"There might be two," Vanessa plucked an unluckily messed up strawberry from a piece of wax paper, "Will you be working tomorrow night, Ash?"

"Yeah," Ash licked her lips, "So will Jacqueline, Adam, Bree, you, and," she paused for affect, "Nicolas."

"Oh. My. God." Vanessa felt all the impatience and anger she had been choking down all day threatened to burst over her sensibility. Nicolas Walden was the only person in the world that Vanessa truly hated. She had prayed every day that she had worked, even the days she had actually worked with him, that she would not be scheduled to work the night shift with Nicolas.

Ten minutes later she was still complaining to Bree as they cleaned up. "He is a horrible person! Crude, crass, and so—ugh!" Words failed her. Bree grimaced, wisps of bright green falling from her hair net.

"I don't particularly care for him myself."

It was nearly eleven o'clock before Vanessa reached home. Her phone was heavy with both voicemail and unanswered text messages, but she felt like dropping on the floor of the hallway. She barely made it to her bed before she _did_ drop like a stone, face first onto her mattress. It felt soooo good. She was nearly asleep when her phone jumped to life with yet another text message.

"God, I can't even right now." Vanessa looked at the screen. It was from Joe. She discovered that she suddenly had enough strength to text back a reply to his question of what she was doing that week. And then, with the memory of her reply slipping away from her, she fell asleep content with no blanket and only her pillow as company.


	5. Chapter 5

"Cupid, She's _My_ Girl!"

Chapter Five

Joe was biting his nails again. This was the third time in ten minutes that he caught himself with teeth tearing at the tips of his fingers. His fingers were starting to hurt and he knew that he ought to stop, but he was going out of his mind. It had been two days since he had texted Vanessa a plea to know when she would be free of the shackles of work. She had answered that it would be after the major rush of the "holiday" was over, but she had not said when that might be.

"Hey," a hand gripped his should, "You're going to strip the flesh off your fingers if you keep that up."

Joe laughed, "You've been telling me that since I was five."

"Yeah?" Frank wrapped a bright green tie around the collar of his dress shirt, "Well, you've been ignoring my advice ever since you were born." Joe snorted. Frank tied the tie neatly, he always had been good with knots, but swallowed hard as he tightened it about his throat. "It always feel as though I'm about to be hanged when I put on one of these."

"Callie has been wearing those scarves recently," Joe took his fingers out of his mouth long enough to spit out a newly chewed off nail, "She ought to be able to help you with your phobia."

"Not a phobia," Frank smoothed out the tails of his necktie, "it's just a feeling—a premonition." He turned to face his brother, "Do I look okay?"

Joe scanned his brother and his suit from head to two and back up again. "You look like a prom queen, ready to be crowned." Frank swiped at him and missed as Joe skipped backwards, his hand still near his mouth.

"Jerk." Frank was smiling. He ran his pocket comb through his hair twice more before heading for the door. Once his brother was gone Joe dug out the pack lunch that his mother had made earlier that day. "Whoever heard of a Valentine's Day Ball that happens _after_ Valentine's Day?" Not only had his brother bought tickets to take his girl out dancing, but his parents had as well. And they had booked a room at an out-of-town hotel. He wrinkled his nose at the brochure that lay on the table.

"I hope this works out." He studied the contents of basket. There were cold meats, potato salad, pasta salad, a vegetable salad, two different kinds of bottled tea, (his mother's idea), and plenty of breads and desserts. "Why tea cups," he brushed a finger along the edge of one of the dainty china cups, "They might break." Iola would've been fine drinking out of foam cups. He shook the thought from his head. He mustn't think of that now.

Tony Prito had said, when Joe had finally been able to pry it out of him, that Vanessa was more lady-like than she appeared. And that she had a fondness for tea and picnics. "This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of a person doing." Half an hour later he was standing on the front porch of the Bender's home, waiting for the door to be opened in answer to his knocks.

He had cleaned up, put on fresh clothes and a splash of cologne that his mother said he ought to wear, and had made an effort to comb his hair. He reached out once more to knock. It was answered by Vanessa herself. She too was dressed in a casual manner in a thin dress, all of a deep red, fell to just below her knees where her long legs continued downward until they ended in low white heels. "Hi."

Joe swallowed, he did not wear a tie, but he still felt like he had a rope around his neck. "Hello. I, uh, hope you feel up to this, I know you must be tired." She was tired, he could see it in the way she leaned against the doorway before pulling the door shut behind her. "Here," he opened the passenger door for her.

"Thank you." Vanessa sank back into the seat of the car like she wanted to melt into the cushions and never get up again. And Joe wondered again if he had suggested doing this at the wrong time. He got in the car and started it up. In no time at all they were on their way to the place his father had told him of. A sheltered pavilion where hardly anyone went anymore. Joe could not think of a more fitting place than that to have a picnic dinner.

Vanessa sat up with a gasp when the car's CD player began to croon out a song. "The Drifters!" Joe smiled. He was glad he had thought to call Mrs. Bender and ask her what music Vanessa liked best. They sat silently, listening to "Cupid", "My Girl", and "Dock of the Bay".

The pavilion was indeed sheltered, as Mr. Hardy had said, so the cold didn't reach them much but they both wore jackets just in case. They chatted while eating, about college classes, about life, about their jobs. Vanessa had the opportunity to vent a little of how her work days had been going and the frustrations she had to deal with. Joe let her vent.

"Oh, Joe," Vanessa breathed as she lifted her tea cup to her lips, "This is exactly what I needed." Joe smiled and felt the memory of Iola try to claw back to the surface, but the calm look on Vanessa's face highlighted by the last rays of the sun stilled all movement of his thoughts.

"I got something for you." He pulled a wrapped package from the basket. Vanessa's face lit up when she saw what was inside.

"I know you!" She nuzzled the soft head of the bear the appeared from beneath the wrapping.

"I was at the store when I saw you playing with it," Joe blushed at the thought of his spying, "I hope you don't mind."

"Mind?" Vanessa flung her arms around his neck. "Joe, I was so horrible all this week and you've made me feel better than I would've felt if I had stayed home and slept all day!"

Joe grinned at the slice of moon as he held Vanessa. _'Yes, Cupid,'_ he thought, _'She's __**my**__ girl!'_


End file.
